Haunted Yorkshire

They're Closer Than You Think!

Bridlington Sightings

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

Could there be a world that lies beyond our beliefs?

These are some of the reported sightings and stories of ordinary people, who believe they have had an extraordinary experience!

Some names have been changed for the purpose of this website!

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Bessingby Road

Bridlington Spa

Burton Agnes Hall

Londesborough

Bull and Son Kirkgate

Skipsea seaside resort

Bessingby Road

A bearded old man who was once a former owner of the property, still occasionally returns to haunt the place, things got so bad that the current owners had the house blessed, but the old man continues to visit.

Depiction of man seen

Bridlington spa

The Spa complex is rumoured to be haunted by someone who fell to their death from a balcony. Robert Eastwood. One former worker there reported a jammed store room door that opened after an unseen hand lifted the latch and gave a hard push.

Burton Agnes Hall

The house was built by three sisters, who never married and when their father died he left them great wealth. One of the sisters, Anne, felt they should build a house that suited their riches and importance. She engaged the best architects, craftsmen and artists, and watched over their work right down to the smallest detail Anne, called God Nance by those who lived, in the area, watches over the house still. It. is her ghost and skull that haunt the place.

Her untimely death happened when the house was finished, when, Anne went out one day to visit the St Quintin family who lived not far away at Harpham, She travelled alone, walking the mile or so to her friends’ house accompanied only by her dog.

When nightfall came she set off on the journey home. However, as she neared a place called St John’s Well, she saw two rough looking tramps lying on the grass by the side of the well, feeling a little afraid, for many tramps in those days made a living by robbing defenceless people in lonely places, she approached the men.

Anne had her dog as protection so she felt there was no real cause for worry, and she pressed on. When she reached the well the tramps stood up and politely begged for money thinking it best to humour them, Anne took out her purse and gave the tramps a few coins. But as she did so the light of the setting sun shone on a ring she was wearing. The men saw it and demanded that she hand it over to them.

The ring wasn’t of any financial value but was sentimental as her mother had given it her before she passed away some years earlier. ‘Mother or no mother,’ said one of the tramps harshly, ‘we are having it, Give it freely, or we’ll take it by force.’ Without waiting for answer, he grabbed hold of Anne’s hand and tried to pull the ring; from her finger. The dog barked and tried to bite the attackers during the scuffle. But while one of them held, on to Anne, the second drove the animal away with brutal blows from a stick beating it until it yelped. Anne screamed for help, but fearing they would be heard, the man with the stick raised it in the air and hit Anne with force on the head, causing her to fall unconscious to the ground. However her screams didn’t go unheard. Some of the villagers came running to her aid, the tramps then feared for their safety and gave up on the ring and scrambled away into the trees. The villagers found Anne still unconscious, her head bleeding freely through a gaping wound. Lifting her as carefully as they could manage, they carried her limp body back to Harpham Hail. There she was nursed back to her senses, and the next day, although weak and battered, she had recovered enough to he taken to her beloved home.

For many days Anne lay in pain, her strength slowly weakening despite the loving attention of her two sisters and all that the best doctors in Yorkshire could do. During the long days of her sickness, she spoke often of one thing: the pride of her life, the magnificent house she had had. Finally, with little breath left in her frail body, she called her sisters to her bedside. ‘Sisters,’ she said, ‘never shall I sleep peacefully in my grave unless I, or part of me at least, remain here in our beautiful home as long as it lasts, Promise me, dear sisters, that when I am dead my head shall he taken from my body and preserved within these walls, Here let it remain for ever, and on no account be removed, And understand, and make known. to those who in future shall become the possessors of the house that if they disobey this my last request, my spirit shall make such a disturbance within its walls as to render it uninhabitable for others as long as my head is kept from its home.

The sisters were horrified by Anne’s request. But she would hear no arguments, and so to calm her and set her fevered mind at rest, the sisters agreed to do as she asked, though, of course, they dismissed the idea from their minds at once. Anne was ill, they thought, and did not know what she was saying. Soon afterwards she died. Her body was buried in the churchyard nearby. The sisters mourned herd death and missed her dearly. She had been the most cheerful of the three women, the most talkative and the most active. Now she was gone and their life was dull; in the days that followed Anne’s funeral, her Sisters dearly wished her back with them.

Exactly a week to the day after Anne’s death, late in the evening, the two remaining sisters were just about to go to bed when suddenly they heard a loud crash in one of the upstairs rooms. They rushed to the foot of the stairs and listened. The sisters ordered two of the male servants to go up and see what had caused the commotion.

The men climbed the stairs and searched the upper rooms, but soon came back having found nothing unusual or out of place.

A few days passed without further cause for alarm. But not for long, exactly a week later, in the dead of night the household was woken by what sounded like many doors being slammed shut in every part of the building. The Sisters and servants ran from their rooms, candles in hand, and met on the landing. Their shadows flickered on the walls about them, their faces were white, arid dressed in their nightgowns with their hair rumpled from sleeping.

They stayed close together for comfort and support, has they searched the entire house. Every door was fast shut. Yet as they crept from one door to the next, the same terrifying crashes echoed round them, always coming from a part of the house other than where they stood. When they felt they couldn’t bear the resounding noise any longer it stopped as abrupt as it had begun.

Exhausted and shaking with fear, they stopped in their tracks, for what seemed an eternity the silent group listened breathlessly. Then one of the servants whispered,, ‘It seems to have stopped.’ ‘Do you think,’ murmured one of the trembling sisters, that it is finished now entirely?’ The house stood silent, disturbed only by the whisper of their own quick breaths and the cry of an owl outside. They returned to their beds, but each one lay sleepless until daylight banished the fears of the night.

Another quiet week went by. But again, on the same night as twice before, the household had its sleep shattered, the house shook and thundered with the noise until it Stopped all at once, only to he followed by something worse. A spine-chilling death groan that echoed hollowly through the Hall. After the groan, the clattering feet stormed round the house, until again the awful groan. This went on and on through the midnight hours. No one dare leave their rooms; they all lay in bed as the terror was unfolding. The very next day the women servants gathered up their belongings, has they couldn’t stay there any longer. The sisters tried to calm the women down and tried to explain that the noises must have a simple explanation, they said; they had nothing to do with ghosts. Of course they were caused by a ghost, replied, the servants. What else could it be? What simple explanation had been found? None and with that they left the Hail.

The sisters, now without help in running their beautiful hut very large home, asked the vicar of the parish to visit them, They told him all that had gone on during the three weeks past, and discussed with him every possible solution to the mystery.

During the course of the conversation the sisters remembered, for the first time since Anne had died, the promise they had made to her on her death bed. Arid they realized then that the noises had been heard on the very same night of the week on which Anne had died, Could it be that their dead sister was keeping the promise she’d made on her death bed? Her promise to make the house ‘uninhabitable for others’ if her head was not kept in the home she loved.

The vicar and the two sisters talked for many hours, trying to find a way of satisfying Anne’s wish and in desperation, the vicar finally suggested that Anne’s grave should be opened and her coffin looked into in the hope that this might shed some light on the problem. Reluctantly, the sisters agreed, so the following day the vicar ordered the gravedigger to open Anne’s grave. When they reached the coffin arid raised the lid a ghastly sight struck horror into both of the men, Anne’s head was severed from her body and, worse still, the flesh and skin had shrivelled away, leaving a naked skull.

This was enough for the vicar and the sisters. Grotesque and hideous though her wishes seemed, the dead woman had her way and Anne’s skull was brought into the Hall. So it was Owd Nance came home, and while her skull was left in peace the house remained free from ghostly interference. From time to time inhabitants have tried to get rid of the skull. But always the knockings, the resounding footsteps, and the blood-curdling groans have returned to plague the place until it is brought back inside.

Londesborough

The owners of the Londesborough thought it strange when they heard a barrel being dragged across the cellar floor back to where the delivery chute is, even though they knew no one was down there. "When they went down to investigate a barrel was sat at the bottom of the delivery chute.

Bull and Son Kirkgate

The pub, which used to be a house and a haberdashery, is supposed to be haunted by a young girl who keeps sliding up and down the bannisters, and a number of people have claimed to have seen or heard a ghost over the years.

Skipsea seaside resort

Nothing remains of Skipsea Castle in Yorkshire except for the castle mound and the ghost of Lady de Bevere, a lady who has been regularly haunting the site since Norman times.